Reputation is an attribute that you'll acquire or lose depending on your performance. If you get into too many accidents or allow too many opponents to pass you, your Reputation will suffer. Conversely, if you're burning up the track, you'll earn plenty of Rep points which can be used to increase your staff. Your Rep points, along with just about anything else you can imagine, is displayed on the screen. There's really no reason for the Rep points to be displayed so prominently. Visual real estate is a commodity, so get in the options menu and start streamlining that HUD.

The game employs a motion blur on the scenery to simulate speed. Considering how good the licensed bikes and the tracks look, it a shame to smear them.

If you're down with the arcade feel, the game is fast and fun, with very little down time. Even when you get bumped by another bike you don't typically lose control. And when you do make a serious blunder, there's the rewind feature that allows you to start over at a point before you got into trouble. You will lose Rep points each time you use it, though. Extra speed can be obtained by using the "tuck." It's accessed by the push of a button. By making the rider crouch, air friction is reduced to a ridiculously unrealistic degree, giving you up to a 25-mph boost. Using the tuck is the key to finishing first in most races.

MotoGP 09/10 forces you to unlock bikes in the Career mode before you can use them in the other modes. You can get your hands on a few different bikes in the Time Trials mode, but if you want to play with the big boys, you're going to have to get them the hard way.

The online multi-player mode is not without its flaws; I didn't always find a match, and I was booted out of the server more than a few times. When I did get into a race, it was a lot more fun than the Career mode, but after a couple of hours I was getting bored. Unfortunately, that's how I felt about every mode in this game. MotoGP 09/10 has just about everything you could want, except that elusive magic that makes a good game great.